


nothing burns like the cold

by sansaswildlinglover



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jon is the new Night King, Sansa is Queen in the North
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansaswildlinglover/pseuds/sansaswildlinglover
Summary: Killing the Night King comes with a price. Jon makes his greatest sacrifice to save the world, and her.Written for Jonsa: A Dream of Spring, Day 1: seasons





	nothing burns like the cold

Nothing burns like the cold.

It burns and stings and pierces every inch of Jon's body. At times it lessens to a prickling in his skin, his flesh, all the way down to his bones, until it hits him again, full force, and he wishes he could thrash and scream, reach out to grab, something, anything, to hold on to.

It's nothing like the cool, sweet slumber that pulled him under the first time he died. There's no release from the pain in this death. Somewhere in a faraway corner of his mind he wonders if that is what's happening to him, whether he is in fact dying again. He was the stabber, not the stabbed. Did he succeed? Is it over? Did he save them? 

He needs to get up and find out. He can't move, he can hardly feel his body. There's only the cold and the heavy weight of the pain. He tries to wiggle a toe, a finger, channels all of his strength into the tip of the pointer finger of his right hand, and for a moment he thinks there's a tingle, a twitch, but he's still being held down.

All around him is a white, deafening silence. All he can see is an icy blue glare inside of him, chilling him to the core of his heart and the pit of his stomach. Once he believes he spots a flash of bright red, but it's gone before he can reach out.

 

He's become used to the pain, so much so that he doesn't even realize that it has begun to dull down to a bearable throbbing, a thud pulsing in time with his idle heartbeat. When he opens his eyes, he still sees blue, but when he blinks, the blue is staring back at him from a pale face, framed by flames. There's fear in her eyes, but also wonder and hope, he thinks.

He hisses at the first touch of her fingers on his cheek. Her skin is so hot it should sear away his flesh, but instead it awakens him, and he covers her hand with his own.

"You're so cold," she whispers.

"You're so warm." His voice is ice cracking open, but her answering smile is like the first ray of sunlight after his darkest night. 

She entwines their fingers and lifts his hand to her face, pressing her cheek into his palm. "You're still you," she muses as she nuzzles into his touch. "Just a little different." She kisses the inside of his wrist, and hours later, he can still feel her lips.

 

The dead have been defeated, the Night King is gone, but his generals are still waiting for him, frozen statues standing sentinel outside the walls of Winterfell. They are calling to him. He can feel the pull in this new body of his. Their voices are shrill and grating, like the cawing of crows, the screech of steel on stone. When he closes his eyes, he sees their home. They want to return, but they're awaiting his orders.

He won't go. He won't, he won't, he won't.

 

Nothing burns like the cold. It's consuming him from the inside out. He hardly sleeps, but when he does, he dreams of the heart of winter. It's calling to him. Still, he won't go.

 

When he can't bear it anymore, he goes to her. "Please," he begs her. "I need you."

He's no longer a wolf or even a dragon. He's cold and empty, nothing left inside of him but a hunger only she can still. 

She embraces him, and he pulls her flush against his chest, capturing her lips in a greedy kiss, his hands unwinding the tresses of her hair from her braid.

With every pull of his lips, every nip of his teeth and every stroke of his tongue he is draining her, feeling her warmth pouring into him, coarsing through his veins and permeating every last inch of his body. He vaguely registers that her hands are fumbling at the laces of his tunic. His own leave their place, tangled up in her hair and replace hers, ripping the piece of clothing from his chest. 

Her hands are fire on his exposed chest. He is burning up under her touch, but he won't make her stop. He opens his eyes, and her gown pools at her feet with a soft thud. She's standing bare before him, and he surrenders to her heat.

He feasts on the flame between her thighs, drinking her all up to quench his thirst. He fills her up, and with every thrust, he drives the cold from his body. When he gives her his seed, he almost feels warm again.

Nothing burns like the cold, except for the fire she's aroused inside of him. It doesn't hurt him. He believes it's what's keeping him alive. 

 

"You have to go," Sansa tells him. She's known it since he first opened his eyes and she found blue ice staring back at her. 

They're tangled up in each other under the furs, and his skin is warm to the touch after hours of languid lovemaking. 

He pulls her closer, spearing his fingers into the mess he's made of her hair, resting his forehead against hers before nipping at her bottom lip. He soothes the sting with a feathery light kiss, and he groans: "I don't want to leave you."

She slides her fingers up his chest, splaying them on his neck, fingernails raking his beard. His eyes flutter closed under her touch as he presses himself closer. She skims the tip of her nose down the bridge of his and brushes her lips against his, letting them hover over the corner of his mouth as she whispers: "I don't want you to go."

Still he needs to. Winter has lasted long enough. 

"One more night," he pleads or promises, she can't be sure. He rolls on top of her, and she opens her thighs so he can settle in the cradle of her hips. He leans in to kiss her, and she tangles her hands into his curls to keep him close. 

"One more night," she repeats, when they finally part for air. "And after that, you'll give me another one. And then I'll beg you for one more."

"Will you?" he chuckles.

She hums in agreement, keening when he sucks on her neck. "Nights will turn into sennights," she continues, tilting her hips to give him access. "Sennights will turn into moons, and before you know--" her words dissolve into a gasp when he enters her again.

"Don't tempt me, woman," he grunts, starting to move inside of her.

She wraps her legs around his hips. "One more night."

 

Nothing burns like the cold, the empty spot in her bed, the coldness in her heart. But she's a Stark, she will endure. She always has. 

 

Jon returns and winter comes with him. She's bathing in the hot springs when he arrives. He sheds his cloak and boots, bit he doesn't have any patience left for the rest of his clothes.

He leaps into the steaming pool, water splashing over the edge as he closes the distance between them. She's in his arms then, and their lips and teeth and tongues clash in their desperation. 

He's still cold as ice when he thrusts himself inside of her, but she doesn't care. She's wet and ready for him, and the water around her is warm enough. 

 

All of their children are born in the winter, always within a year of his return. It's after ten years and two children, a boy and a girl, and a third on the way, early in their fourth winter together, that Sansa notes: "You haven't aged a day." 

"Neither have you," he tells her with a smile. 

"Liar." It's true, time hasn't affected her that much, but Jon still looks exactly the way he did when he was three-and-twenty.

She knows it scares him, which is why they never speak of it, until one night during their sixth winter together. She's mending a shift by the fire, pausing to rub her expanding belly, when he says: "I want to take you with me."

She puts her needlework aside and sighs. "You can't."

"I know," he says after a pause. 

They're quiet for a while. 

"If I could, I would though," he tells her. "Perhaps it's selfish,  but I want to keep you with me, forever."

She has wanted that since before they knew it was possible, but she can't.  She won't. Robb is only two-and-ten, Lyanna seven and Cat four. She's expecting another child, another boy, the maester says. She wants to name him Ned.

"Some day, when they're older perhaps." She reaches out to take his hand.

"Isn't it odd?" he muses. "Time doesn't affect me anymore,  but it's my enemy in every possible way."

"Don't be silly," she tells him. "It's not easy, but when have our lives ever been simple? You're here with me now, and you gave me our children."

It's far from perfect, but she can't change it, and at least there's joy in her life now. She doesn't like it when he talks like this. She hates to see him sullen and sad.

He shakes his head. "You don't look seven-and-thirty, but you  _have_ changed."

She purses her lips. "Are you saying you won't want me anymore when I'm old and grey?"

"No!" His nostrils flare and he pulls his hand from hers. "I'm saying I don't want to see you die."

"I promise, you won't," she assures him, taking his hand again.

 

She almost breaks her promise when she gives birth to their last children, twins, when she's three-and-forty. He can't bear to leave her, not after almost losing her, so that winter is the longest one the North has known in hundreds of years. Sam and Brienne are seven by the time he returns to the true North.

"Next time I come back," he tells Sansa when they're saying goodbye, "I'm taking you with me. I can't do this again, not anymore."

She nods, wrapping her arms around his neck, and he pulls her flush against him. He presses his lips to her temple and murmurs: "I'll give you as much time as I can."

 

Sansa is one-and-sixty when she says goodbye to her children, but standing next to her oldest son, no one would guess her his mother, she could pass for his twin sister. He and his siblings have never questioned it, but his children and Lyanna's have often asked her about it.

"It's magic," she whispered each time with a knowing smile.

In truth she doesn't understand it either, apart from what Jon told her once, many years ago:  _"Fire consumes, but ice preserves."_ It's all she needs to know, she's grateful for the time she's been given to spend with her children.

And now she will never be parted from Jon again.

 

Nothing burns like the cold, but their love burns brighter than any flame in this world. 


End file.
